Northern Ireland

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dodds. I endorse his celebration of the union from this side of the Irish Sea; it is as important to us that Northern Ireland be part of the United Kingdom as it is to people in Northern Ireland to share that common membership of the union with the other component parts.

I also echo the noble Lord’s tribute to Lord Cormack. Unlikely though it may seem, I owe a great debt to Lord Cormack, who chaired my leadership campaign when I stood for the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1997. Although we differed on some issues, as is often the case we shared far more in common than meets the eye. He was a great parliamentarian, a great unionist, a great Conservative and a great Christian, and may he rest in peace.

I welcome the terms of this humble Address, and I hope that the reductions in border checks are as substantial as is claimed in the government document Safeguarding the Union. If they are, I congratulate the DUP on having secured those improvements. However, it raises a few questions. We were told that the Windsor Framework would make trading between Birmingham and Belfast just like trading between Edmonton and Edinburgh. Paragraph 108 of Safeguarding the Union says that 4 million more movements will now be covered by UK food safety laws, not EU laws, resulting in the

“scrapping of costly veterinary certificates and checks”.

Therefore, either the Windsor settlement was oversold or these new arrangements are being oversold. If the former, the DUP’s decision to withdraw from Stormont achieved more than the UK Government were able to achieve at the time of the Windsor settlement. Clearly, these changes are of benefit to the whole of Northern Ireland—to all communities in Northern Ireland. I would have thought they would have been welcomed by all parties, admittedly somewhat shamefacedly as far as the other parties are concerned, because they neither sought nor even believed it possible or desirable to achieve modifications of the protocol, which they wanted enforced, it would seem, in all its rigour.

In a week when we have seen the other House bow to threats of violence, we should pay tribute to the DUP and the unionists in that they secured these improvements by constitutional means. That is all the more so because the whole reason we are in this position —the whole reason why the Government agreed to try to have a border in the Irish Sea rather than in the natural place, between Northern Ireland and southern Ireland—was republican threats to blow up or shoot anyone who enforced checks at that border. Shamefully, the Irish Government waved around pictures of a blown- up customs post, dating from decades ago, to try to persuade their European colleagues to insist that there be no border within Northern Ireland and that we had to have one in the Irish Sea. In fact, the EU’s insistence that it would need border checks to maintain the security of the single market was entirely bogus.

For entirely other reasons, I was reading the European Commission White Paper, Completing the Internal Market, which it published in 1985, ahead of the measures to create the single market. At that time, member states had different SPS rules—different veterinary rules, and so on—and they used to enforce them at the border with border checks between Germany, France and other countries within the European Union. Naturally, the European Commission did not like that, and it proposed to abolish these border posts within the European Union, despite the fact that these different standards would persist on different sides of the border. It wrote:

“As a further … step towards the objective of abolishing internal frontier controls by 1992, all veterinary controls (live animals and animal products) and plant health controls will have to be limited to the places of departure, and controls of veterinary and plant health certificates made at the places of destination”.


Indeed, the Commission recognises that it is possible to maintain the security of its member states without controls at the border by doing so at the point of dispatch or the point of arrival. That is what it proposed then, and it could equally have been applied in Northern Ireland, should have been applied, and could be applied in future if the present arrangements do not work out satisfactorily.

I would like the Minister to confirm the following. It is not clear from the language in Safeguarding the Union that the arrangements we are now talking about are all under the protocol. The protocol has not been abolished, rescinded or removed from our law; it is part of our law. It allowed changes to be made by agreement within “the committee”, consisting of two people, one from Britain and one from the European Union, and that, essentially, is what is being done. All these changes are being done under the protocol.

At the risk of boring the House, I will repeat what I think we ought all to remember: that the protocol is intrinsically temporary and transitional. That is not my view, but the view of the European Union at the time of the negotiations. Noble Lords may recall that Theresa May said in her Lancaster House speech that she wanted to negotiate a future trade arrangement between Britain and Europe at the same time as our withdrawal arrangements under Article 50. The European Union said that that was not possible. It could not do it even if it wanted to, because Article 50 does not provide a legal base for negotiating trade agreements. Trade agreements with non-member states can be negotiated by the European Union only under Article 234. Therefore, we had to leave first before it could negotiate trade arrangements with us. How come, then, that we reached agreement on trade arrangements as far as Northern Ireland and the European Union was concerned in the Article 50 withdrawal agreement? The EU said, “Well, that allows temporary and transitional measures, and only temporary and transitional measures, arising from the departure of a member state”. Therefore, the arrangements we entered into—the protocol—are temporary and transitional.

It would be wonderful if what the Government have agreed, and what the DUP has said is at least enough for it to go back into Stormont, works out smoothly and resolves all friction, both economic and political, arising from differences in EU and UK law and the attempt to resolve these via the Irish Sea. If so, we can all carry on and live happily ever after. However, if not—and I fear it may well not work out satisfactorily in the long term—we should remember that we have the right, under the agreement we negotiated with the European Union and its interpretation of it, to say that the protocol was temporary and must be replaced; and obviously, we want to replace it with something satisfactory to the EU, as our neighbour, and which would ensure the integrity of the single market. Therefore, we should adopt the method it proposed and used initially, and which subsequently Sir Jonathan Faull, himself a former director-general of the Commission, proposed as a way of resolving the problems we currently face.

I am glad that some progress has been made, I hope more progress has been made than meets the eye, and if not, alternative possibilities exist for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

Follow that, my Lords. It is always a privilege to follow the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, who always speaks with such authority, common sense and passion, and this evening he surpassed himself.

I, too, will begin by paying tribute to Lord Cormack. He was incredibly kind to me when I was a new Member of this House. He always looked on in a benign, almost school-teachery way. I found myself agreeing with him rather more often than I would have expected, as we would nod to one another during some of the debates on Northern Ireland and Brexit. His contributions were based on experience and common sense and were always extremely well judged. He will be sorely missed. I, too, from these Benches pass on our condolences to his family.

This has been a wide-ranging debate about identity, with some anger and passion. There have been some very good historical speeches; it is always dangerous to highlight some in particular, but I particularly enjoyed the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Bew. The noble Lord, Lord Jay, also brought an element of common sense and pragmatism. I even found myself agreeing with elements of the speech from the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, which was a refreshing change.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

Never again.

[Baroness Suttie (LD)]

Never again, no.

The context for the debate, both in this Chamber today and in the other place yesterday, is the extremely welcome return of the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive, which we have already debated in this Chamber on several occasions. I, too, once again place on record my gratitude to the Minister, who has personally led the way so often on taking the stalemate forward. The deal was supported by the leadership of the DUP—although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, said, for those listening to today’s debate it has not always been apparent from the DUP Benches—and holding this debate was in fact part of that deal.

It is understandable that noble Lords from the DUP feel extremely strongly that they have been let down; there were some powerful speeches on that. They feel that they have been let down on several occasions since Brexit, perhaps particularly by the former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. They feel that they have been lied to and that, rightly, some of the past agreements to try to get over the impasse have been ever so slightly overspun; the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, spoke rather marvellously on that point.

This erosion of trust has led many to feel that their place in the union was not as secure as it once was. On the other hand, the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, made clear in her very strong speech that she feels that not enough has been done to give recognition in the Command Paper that there is another point of view. She even went so far as to say that she felt that it has deviated from the principles set down in the Good Friday/Belfast agreement.

On the deal itself that helped to take us to this position, I thank the Minister for his letter yesterday evening, which was still slightly short on the detail as to how some of the structures will work in practice, such as the east-west council and InterTrade UK. Instead of repeating my questions, I place on record just that I look forward to reading the guidance eventually and seeing the Minister’s future replies on these matters.

As other noble Lords have said, I hope in many ways that, following this debate, we can begin to move on. With the return of a functioning Assembly and Executive, we can begin to focus on solutions and practical alternatives, as well as vital issues for ordinary people in Northern Ireland, such as health, education and the economy. Northern Ireland has tremendous potential, with its access to trade and opportunities that other parts of the UK can be quite envious of.

The second part of the context of the debate is the union of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is a union made up of four separate parts, each with their own distinct and powerful histories. At present, it just so happens that all four parts of the United Kingdom have different political leaderships from different political complexions.

As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, hinted in his speech, making this work, as somebody who believes strongly in devolution, has not always been easy. In fact, respect and consultation are not all that they have been. Now that the Assembly and the Executive are back, I hope that the Minister will be able to concentrate on the consent and consultation mechanisms between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom to make sure that the Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive are properly and fully consulted in a timely manner.

On a personal level, I have very much benefited from the union. I am a Scot whose father was born in Enniskillen in Northern Ireland. I have a UK passport and an Irish passport. I left Scotland in 1990 and have since lived in London and Broadstairs in Kent and in the past lived in Brussels. I am strongly opposed to Scottish independence and the break-up of the union but do not think that you can simply declare or legislate to say that the union is a good thing. As the noble Lord, Lord Hay, said in his very positive speech, we have to demonstrate the purpose and added value of the union in the context of the 21st century and the global challenges we face. It is up to all of us who believe in the union to make sure that it is fit for purpose and that people see its added value.

The third element of the context of our debate this evening is the reaffirmation of support for the Good Friday/Belfast agreement and all its strands. Many noble Lords present this evening—including obviously the noble Lord, Lord Murphy—were personally involved with negotiating that agreement. There are also many here this evening who personally experienced violence during the Troubles, and the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, reminded us so powerfully of the importance of remembering the past as well as looking to the future.

However, it is important to acknowledge there is now also a generation in Northern Ireland who have grown up since the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement—people who have personally never known that violence. They have known only the more prosperous and peaceful times in Northern Ireland. That generation have a different world view from many of the noble Lords who have spoken here this evening. Sense of identity is changing in Northern Ireland. As my noble friend Lord Alderdice said when we last debated these matters on 13 February:

“there is an emergent third community, which has a very strong view about things and which is not partisan unionist and not partisan nationalist. It takes a view that what we want to do is to find what is in the best interests of the people of Northern Ireland”.—[Official Report, 13/2/24; col. 227.]

It is also worth recalling that the Good Friday/Belfast agreement was agreed at a time when the United Kingdom was still in the European Union, and the European Union played a very important role in providing the context for the negotiations towards peace. It remains an incredibly positive and important document. It is an agreement that has been used across the world as a positive example of how a peaceful settlement can be brought about. However, the agreement is not set in aspic. Like all documents based on a series of compromises, it has to be a living document which changes and adapts to the changing circumstances in which we find ourselves. The very fact that we have had five of the last seven years—as the Minister reminded us—without a functioning Assembly and Executive shows that there is a need to revisit whether there are ways to bring about greater stability to the institutions. As I mentioned earlier, there is now also a sizeable alternative view, perhaps mostly represented by Alliance in Northern Ireland. That is another area where I believe we should look at some elements of reform.

A lot has happened since the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement but it is still, I believe, an inspirational document. I was looking at it again at the weekend just to remind myself of the text. It is worth recalling that paragraph 3 of the declaration of support states:

“We are committed to partnership, equality and mutual respect as the basis of relationships within Northern Ireland, between North and South, and between these islands”.


In recent years, some of this sense of mutual respect and trust has been eroded but I sincerely hope that, for the sake of Northern Ireland, we can begin now to see a return of these values. To quote the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Eames, it is welcome that Stormont is back and for the future generation we should celebrate that.

Windsor Framework (Democratic Scrutiny) Regulations 2023

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Dodds, in what has been a fascinating debate. I have agreed with a lot of what every speaker has said but not the entirety of what any speaker has said. But what has surprised me most is what I have not heard. Over recent months, I have sat through many debates in this Chamber and listened, often with sympathy, to noble Lords calling passionately for parliamentary control over the Executive, declaring that no laws should be passed without scrutiny and accountability to Parliament, deploring the use of Henry VIII powers enabling the Executive to pass primary legislation by statutory instrument, and calling for international agreements to be subject to debates and votes in this House before they are ratified.

So I thought it quite reasonable, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, to suppose that noble Lords would be up in arms about the constitutional implications of the Windsor deal, whatever their views about the substance of it and the Northern Ireland protocol. It has already been ratified by Messrs Šefčovič and Cleverly before this House has had any opportunity to debate it, and before any comprehensive text has even been published for this House to consider. Some 90% of the changes, such as they are, will be implemented without any legislation by our Parliament, since they are being implemented by EU regulations applying directly in Northern Ireland, without this Parliament having any say. This will leave 300 laws, which neither this Parliament nor Stormont will have any power to alter or remove, directly applicable in Northern Ireland. Yet we have heard scarcely a peep out of the normal defenders and great guardians of parliamentary supremacy on the Labour, Lib Dem and Cross Benches. That is extraordinary. It seems they are perfectly happy to see executive power exercised with no scrutiny or accountability to Parliament, and not answerable to the electorate in any part of this country, as long as it is exercised by the EU under the sacred Northern Ireland protocol.

Although all the aspects inherent in the Northern Ireland protocol, with or without the Windsor Framework, are in many ways objectionable, I found the Northern Ireland protocol tolerable as a temporary measure to ensure that there would be no infrastructure and checks on the Irish border, even if the UK had left the EU without a trade and co-operation agreement. It was, and is, temporary and transitional, because it was negotiated under Article 50 and the EU has always said that that only enabled it to enter into temporary and transitional arrangements. It remains temporary and transitional because the EU has been very insistent that the Windsor Framework makes no change to the legal basis of the Northern Ireland protocol. Indeed, I understand that the changes it will make are being introduced by the EU using a procedure designed for what it calls “small and minor” amendments to existing laws. That tells us what it thinks about the substance of what has been negotiated. It is not quite as significant as some claim.

This statutory instrument is heralded as very important. I want my noble friend to confirm, first, that the Stormont brake gives the UK no substantive power, in practice, that it did not already possess. Secondly, I want him to confirm that the powers given to Stormont are in fact being transferred from the UK to Stormont, not from the EU. Let me explain. Under the protocol, pre Windsor, the UK could entirely veto, in a qualified way, any new EU laws and regulations under Article 13(4) of the protocol. We could not use that article to veto changes to existing EU laws that it may choose to make, but we could veto them under Article 16, again in a qualified way, if they threatened serious disruption. That is all we can do now under the Windsor Framework, so there is no change in the powers we possess. This is much the same situation as will be enshrined under the new Article 13(3a) of the protocol, following the Windsor Framework. So the only significant change introduced by this statutory instrument is the transfer from Westminster to Stormont of control of the trigger to exercise the qualified veto powers we already possess in respect of both new laws and changes to existing laws. That transfer could have been made unilaterally by the UK, with or without the Windsor Framework—it is not thanks to any concession by the EU—and there is no particular reason why we should make any concessions in return to the EU for something we could do ourselves.

One aspect of the Stormont brake and its antecedents in the original protocol is illogical to me, although, strangely, no one else seems to find it so. Remember that the sole justification for the protocol is to protect the EU single market without creating border infra- structure and checks at the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. So surely the Stormont brake should enable Stormont, or the UK, to veto any new or amended EU law unless that would cause serious and permanent problems to the EU single market—not serious and permanent problems within Northern Ireland, which is the test applied under the Stormont brake. If there were problems on both sides, surely it should weigh the problems for the single market against those created in Northern Ireland. I merely ask the Minister: why is there this strange and illogical approach to the protocol?

I hope that, overall, the Windsor deal will to some extent alleviate the problems caused by the Northern Ireland protocol, and that it will mean there is less of a problem now, while we have all the grace periods that we have unilaterally taken. Those grace periods will end, which could make things much worse, but I hope this will make things better. We cannot tell from the statutory instrument we will vote on today, or from the whole thing, because it has not been published yet.

However, I am pretty sure that in the long term, the Northern Ireland protocol, with or without the Windsor Framework, will prove unsustainable. Any solution must ensure that there continues to be no infrastructure and no checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic. But it surely means that we must also ensure that there are no checks and infrastructure at the border, or non-border, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I can see only one way that that can be achieved while maintaining the integrity of the European single market, which is a perfectly legitimate objective of the European Union that we wish to respect. It is using the powers—which I, as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, had under the predecessor Act to the Export Control Act 2002—to make it an offence to export to the EU anything that does not meet its standards. We can do so using the SPIRE system, which makes it user-friendly.

Normally, export controls are not implemented by checks at the border but, when there is suspicion of wrongdoing, via inspections at the company’s headquarters, warehouse or point of dispatch. We know that this sort of thing can be done: the Republic would not need to monitor the border any more than it has needed to monitor it since it unilaterally introduced controls on imports of coal and other fuels from the EU a few months ago. When people asked, “How are you going to do that without border infrastructure and controls?”, it said, “Oh, we’ll do it by a market surveillance mechanism in the shops and outlets in the Republic”. That is how these things should be done and, in future, could be done.

Although I will not be voting for the fatal amendment to the Motion today, I have great sympathy with the position of the DUP. If the party goes back into government and the Assembly, it will be asked to implement controls at the border between two parts of the United Kingdom—but the DUP’s whole raison d’être is to belong to the union and it would find that very difficult. I have no doubt that, if Sinn Féin were required to implement one single camera on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic as a condition of participation in the Assembly, it would refuse to participate in the Assembly. So we should not think that the DUP is being unreasonable, any more than I would think that Sinn Féin were being unreasonable if it refused to participate on those grounds.

We have to find a way to enable the DUP back into power sharing which does not blame the party for the problems created by the protocol—which, as I said, is almost certainly unsustainable. I hope that the Windsor Framework will make things better, not worse. It will not solve the problem in the long term; we must find a solution that means no border with the Republic and no border between two parts of the United Kingdom.

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, at the commencement of the debate, said that a majority in Northern Ireland supports the Windsor Framework. But I respectfully say to him that his comments display a lack of knowledge of the Belfast agreement, because majority rule is no longer the foundation of the political settlement in Northern Ireland; instead, cross-community support is demanded, and, in the past, I believed that this House strenuously supported that.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, told us that a lot of the detail in the SI is unclear. But it seems that we are asked, as a House, just to let it pass through, even though it is unclear and imperfect. In fact, I have not heard one Member of this House who has spoken already suggest that either the SI or the Windsor Framework is a perfect document—but it is good enough for Northern Ireland.

The noble Lord, Lord Hain, went further, saying that the Northern Ireland protocol—the original protocol—had a glaring democratic deficit. But that is not how it was sold when it came to this House before. In fact, the SDLP, the Alliance Party and Sinn Féin said that it was to be rigorously implemented, with no changes and no negotiation. Yet it has now been acknowledged by His Majesty’s Opposition that it has a glaring democratic deficit, even though, in the previous debate, it was sold as the jewel in the crown for Northern Ireland and we should be very honoured to be given the opportunity to embrace it. I believe that certain Members of this House should blush at how they sold and championed the original protocol when it was debated in our House. This debate, like the framework—

Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Supreme Court Judgment

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Hay, for his question, which I think I have covered in my previous answers.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, up to half of all goods and produce exported across the border from Northern Ireland to the Republic are produced in Northern Ireland, and therefore cannot be validated as to whether they meet EU conditions at the border between GB and Northern Ireland. Should we not remove the border between GB and Northern Ireland and rely on export controls and the SPIRE system, which I used to exercise as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, to ensure that goods exported to the European Union meet European standards? That would solve the problem.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

My noble friend, as a former Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, makes a valuable point. He will of course be aware that the Government have proposed, and are currently discussing, a system of green channels and red channels at points of entry, whereby goods that will never leave the United Kingdom will not be subject to the controls that will be placed upon those goods that will enter the single market.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Lord Lilley Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

I come from Scotland; the sun does not shine very often but the wind does indeed blow. It is important to stress that we have powered past coal and it is no longer a vital part of our electricity generation. As we begin to decarbonise domestic heating and our transport fleet, the real challenge is that the demand for electricity will grow so we will need to find innovations. We are already a world leader in offshore wind, but we will need to look at nuclear and decarbonising hydrocarbons through carbon capture, utilisation and storage. However, the lights will not go off.

[Lord Lilley (Con)]

My Lords, as we move from heating by gas to heating by electricity, will my noble friend bear something in mind? As you move north, it gets colder, heating bills are higher and incomes are lower, so those bills make up a higher proportion of people’s incomes. Heating by electricity costs four times as much per thermal unit as heating by gas. Does he think that people in the red wall voted to quadruple their heating bills?

[Lord Duncan of Springbank]

My noble friend is right to remind us that the challenge we face as we move to decarbonise our domestic heating is real. The question of whether we move towards full electrification or whether we move towards hydrogen or a hybrid option is yet to be determined. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that we cannot increase fuel poverty as a consequence of the choices we make. This Government are not about making people poorer in order to reduce carbon dioxide levels.